EvilEgg:I fail to see how anyone cannot regard this adventure as a mistake. We went to find WMDs, we didn't find any. That is a mistake.

The only real question, if there is one, is what kind of mistake was it? Was a intelligence mistake, a diplomatic mistake, or a political mistake.

It wasn't a mistake. It was completely intentional and the administration knew what it was doing. The administration misled Congress and the general population intentionally. I think they even lied to themselves at various stages. The question that remains is "why?"

If we didn't learn our lesson from Vietnam, we never will. Rome made it over a thousand years before the arrogance of empire brought them down, but history moves faster these days. I doubt we'll make it to 300.

I was passing through the security checkpoint at McCarran when alarms went off and the area was put under lockdown. I was with my wife and kid and we were looking for some place to sit down to wait it out. There was a bench with a large white lady taking up two and a half spaces. Next to her was her low-intelligence son, mouth agape, playing his portable Nintendo game.

Some other woman starts biatching about having to wait, having to stand around when there was obviously no threat. Why couldn't we just get on the tram and get moving?

DON'T YOU REMEMBER IRAQ? was the reply from the large woman. DON'T YOU REMEMBER WHAT OSAMA DID TO US? THAT'S WHY. MY SON IS IN THE ARMY DEFENDING THIS COUNTRY, THE LEAST YOU COULD DO IS SHUT UP AND LET THEM DO THEIR JOB.

It turned out someone had brought a knife through security in another part of the airport. After a couple more minutes we were all cleared to go and we got on the tram a little more enlightened about what kind of people make up the intricate social fabric of our country.

Philip Morris doesn't sit around hoping more people start smoking, they do every dirty trick in the book to increase their client base. The military-industrial crowd is the exact same way, if people aren't using weapons on each other, then they aren't buying more weapons. The US is the world's biggest arms dealer. These guys love war and promote it every chance they get, peace is bad for business.

rjkline:amazing how liberals have been proven wrong in almost everything they get their skirts up about after a little time passes...........just a sad group of proven losers.......almost funny

Black-Nosed Buddha

A nun who was searching for enlightenment made a statue of Buddha and covered it with gold leaf. Wherever she went she carried this golden Buddha with her. Years passed and, still carrying her Buddha, the nun came to live in a small temple in a country where there were many Buddhas, each one with its own particular shrine. The nun wished to burn incense before her golden Buddha. Not liking the idea of the perfume straying to the others, she devised a funnel through which the smoke would ascend only to her statue. This blackened the nose of the golden Buddha, making it especially ugly.

The only people in the US who benefited from the Iraq War were oil companies who enjoyed the price spikes and Haliburton shareholders who enjoyed numerous no bid contracts. It's a good thing our leaders at the time didn't have ties to those industries or it might have looked a tad suspicious.

dr_blasto:EvilEgg: I fail to see how anyone cannot regard this adventure as a mistake. We went to find WMDs, we didn't find any. That is a mistake.

The only real question, if there is one, is what kind of mistake was it? Was a intelligence mistake, a diplomatic mistake, or a political mistake.

It wasn't a mistake. It was completely intentional and the administration knew what it was doing. The administration misled Congress and the general population intentionally. I think they even lied to themselves at various stages. The question that remains is "why?"

If it was a mistake then it was a mistake by all of America. No one that I personally know was against it when it started and it was all but lauded by the entire country, even hard core democrats in Washington. Now after 10 years...sure..hindsight says we could have done more good by spending that money and effort in Afghanistan, but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. Second guessing it now is nothing more than self destruction. The problem with Iraq was that once it was started then it had to be finished regardless of the right/wrong of the war. Some wars a re justifiable, some are not, but they can all be classified as mistakes if examined closely enough.

Found this interesting:The same March survey finds 57% of Americans saying the Vietnam War -- which resulted in the most U.S. casualties of the three recent wars -- was a mistake, but that is down from 69% in Nov 2010.

Also, looking at the elderly opinions on war is interesting. They seem to be the most pacifistic, probably because it has nothing to do with their lawn.

Mugato:rjkline: amazing how liberals have been proven wrong in almost everything they get their skirts up about after a little time passes...........just a sad group of proven losers.......almost funny

So you think invading Iraq was a good idea? I've heard that people like you existed, I just never caught a glimpse of one in the wild,

Really, old buddy? Seriously? You are going to try to argue with that clown?My granddad had an expression: "Wrestle with a turd, and, win or lose, you're going to get messed up."

dr_blasto:EvilEgg: I fail to see how anyone cannot regard this adventure as a mistake. We went to find WMDs, we didn't find any. That is a mistake.

The only real question, if there is one, is what kind of mistake was it? Was a intelligence mistake, a diplomatic mistake, or a political mistake.

It wasn't a mistake. It was completely intentional and the administration knew what it was doing. The administration misled Congress and the general population intentionally. I think they even lied to themselves at various stages. The question that remains is "why?"

It's pretty well known that Rumsfeld and his cronies had drafted up a letter outlining their plans to go back into Iraq as far back as Bush I. The fact that Bush II appointed them and put them in key positions was a huge black mark for him, since after he already began moving against the Taliban/Al Qaeda they saw their opportunity to say "WEll, gee, boss, see, this guy your dad went after is also sponsoring terrorism, and you should totally go after him too, and there're WMDs, etc.", and he was willing to listen to his advisers push a plan.

Unfortunately, when you have people that control the sources of information, and feed bad intel to the president, the president isn't going to go out of his way to go around them and fact-check what his advisers are spouting. It's their job to, you know, get it right.

So you end up with a military spoiling for a fight, an easy win, a way to make the Generals who wanted to go all the way to Baghdad the last time look like heroes, and a bunch of guys who are in cabinet positions that have the ability and desire to scratch something off their bucket list who are all "Well, since we have a president who is already willing to fight a war, and we have a blank check from congress, what the fark why not?"

Then, when shiat doesn't go as easy as you think it will, since you have a president who, despite what many want to believe, has a conscience and decides "Well, gee, we went in and farked up this country, we can't just level the place and leave with people in abject poverty, all sources of income and their own farking dwellings blown to shiat, we gotta clean up this farking mess and make sure they get back on their feet in a democratic, free way", and so what was going to be a fun night out of blowing shiat up and shooting rag-heads turns into a clusterfark as you try to force a destructive organization into a humanitarian one.

The biggest difference between Obama and Bush, as near as I can tell, in this regard is that Obama's unwilling to do the heavy lifting in cases where a populace want a dictator gone. He's willing to tacitly support with air power and aid, but he's not going to send in troops to do the job.

On one hand, I applaud his efforts to force the people to make changes themselves. On the other, I must disagree with the tactic as it's incredibly naive to believe that untrained freedom fighters without sufficient armament can take on a vastly superior military force and have a meaningful victory without outside intervention.

Even in Iraq and Afghanistan, we roflstomped the shiat out of the Taliban and beat them in the numbers and might game. The only thing left is for them to fight the superior force with small cuts here and there, and a show of resistance which is not effective militarily, but in the long haul may be enough to make us think it's not worth continuing.

Terrydatroll:If it was a mistake then it was a mistake by all of America. No one that I personally know was against it when it started and it was all but lauded by the entire country, even hard core democrats in Washington. Now after 10 years...sure..hindsight says we could have done more good by spending that money and effort in Afghanistan, but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. Second guessing it now is nothing more than self destruction. The problem with Iraq was that once it was started then it had to be finished regardless of the right/wrong of the war. Some wars a re justifiable, some are not, but they can all be classified as mistakes if examined closely enough.

I and others I knew at the time thought we shouldn't go into Iraq (though we supported going into Afghanistan). The general attitude at the time toward that opinion was "Shut the f*ck up." So no, I did not laud the war, and no, I was not in on the mistake.

It's the obligation of free democratic people to band together to overthrow tyrants wherever it's feasible. Iraq was the right time and place, The mistake was electing an incompetent, self-serving administration of bunglers who couldn't even articulate the moral high ground of doing that without lying and spinning. The failure was in their hubris. The post war plan of discarding the whole existing civil structure was ludicrous. It should have been molded and redirected over a generation.

Terrydatroll:If it was a mistake then it was a mistake by all of America. No one that I personally know was against it when it started and it was all but lauded by the entire country, even hard core democrats in Washington. Now after 10 years...sure..hindsight says we could have done more good by spending that money and effort in Afghanistan, but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. Second guessing it now is nothing more than self destruction. The problem with Iraq was that once it was started then it had to be finished regardless of the right/wrong of the war. Some wars a re justifiable, some are not, but they can all be classified as mistakes if examined closely enough.

Sure, other than the dozens and dozens of anti-war protests for the several months between September and March in the run up to the invasion.

jso2897:If we didn't learn our lesson from Vietnam, we never will. Rome made it over a thousand years before the arrogance of empire brought them down, but history moves faster these days. I doubt we'll make it to 300.

I'm not sure the difference is that history moves faster these days. The Romans had 700 years relatively free from the corruption of Greek "ideals". As soon as the Greek values set in, it was a pretty quick fall. We, on the other hand, have been infected with a virulent strain of Greekitis from the get-go.

I was against the entire thing. I knew what it was (a money grab/revenge/political bs), and had to defend myself 'cuz I was a commie'. Hell, even in liberal Seattle people were calling for the old "glass-parking-lot" bit. War is not a good idea, but it makes money for certain people. Who will never go to war.

thecpt:Found this interesting:The same March survey finds 57% of Americans saying the Vietnam War -- which resulted in the most U.S. casualties of the three recent wars -- was a mistake, but that is down from 69% in Nov 2010.

Also, looking at the elderly opinions on war is interesting. They seem to be the most pacifistic, probably because it has nothing to do with their lawn.

Also, there's the direct knowledge factor - I , for instance, got drafted in 1968. Nobody will ever be able to fool me that the Vietnam war was anything but a racket.Young fools, on the other hand, can sometimes be convinced that it was a noble conflict that could have been "won" , if it wasn't for those darn "liberals".But don't stop believing, sonny-boy. It's cute.

AverageAmericanGuy:tom baker's scarf: EvilEgg: I fail to see how anyone cannot regard this adventure as a mistake. We went to find WMDs, we didn't find any. That is a mistake.

The only real question, if there is one, is what kind of mistake was it? Was a intelligence mistake, a diplomatic mistake, or a political mistake.

It was "we let our collective selves be lied to" mistake.

Even if we found WMDs in Iraq, does that justify the invasion?

No intelligent American thinks invading Iraq for any reason at that time was justifiable.

There were (and are) plenty of morons who think going after Saddam and the WMDs was great, though.

So how does calling it a "mistake" and criticizing every aspect of it make it any better for you? What exactly is wrong with you that makes you want to classify everyone who disagrees with your opinion a moron? There are good and bad results achieved in all wars and the difficult part about it is that the war cannot be undone, so why would you look only at the negatives and call people morons who dwell on the positives of a thing that is done? It's like someone's house burning down and them finding joy and comfort in the fact that their dog was left alive. Are they morons as well?

Sure, mistakes were made and we should learn from them, but that doesn't mean that we cannot reflect upon the positives as well.

It's obvious that they wanted to get rid of Saddam since the first Gulf War, they just had an opportunity finally after 9/11. Did he have WMDs? Maybe, probably not. Was he going to try to get them? Probably at some point. It's more obvious that we wanted free access to oil, which I kind of don't have a problem with as long as we're 1) honest about it and 2) the goddamn prices actually go down. Saddam was an issue though in that region and we eventually would have had to deal with him but we rushed it way too soon and without a proper plan.

I don't blame Bush, he's just a good ole boy. It's everyone around him that manipulated everything.

bulldg4life:Terrydatroll: If it was a mistake then it was a mistake by all of America. No one that I personally know was against it when it started and it was all but lauded by the entire country, even hard core democrats in Washington. Now after 10 years...sure..hindsight says we could have done more good by spending that money and effort in Afghanistan, but at the time it seemed the right thing to do. Second guessing it now is nothing more than self destruction. The problem with Iraq was that once it was started then it had to be finished regardless of the right/wrong of the war. Some wars a re justifiable, some are not, but they can all be classified as mistakes if examined closely enough.

Sure, other than the dozens and dozens of anti-war protests for the several months between September and March in the run up to the invasion.

rumpelstiltskin:jso2897: If we didn't learn our lesson from Vietnam, we never will. Rome made it over a thousand years before the arrogance of empire brought them down, but history moves faster these days. I doubt we'll make it to 300.

I'm not sure the difference is that history moves faster these days. The Romans had 700 years relatively free from the corruption of Greek "ideals". As soon as the Greek values set in, it was a pretty quick fall. We, on the other hand, have been infected with a virulent strain of Greekitis from the get-go.

That is pretty abstract - it seems like it would require considerable explication before I knew what you were even really talking about - so I can't disagree.

I see that Andrew Sullivan was asked to list what he got wrong about Iraq for the five year anniversary of the invasion, and since I was as big a war booster as anyone, I thought I would list what I got wrong:

Everything.

And I don't say that to provide people with an easy way to beat up on me, but I do sort of have to face facts. I was wrong about everything.

I was wrong about the Doctrine of Pre-emptive warfare.I was wrong about Iraq possessing WMD.I was wrong about Scott Ritter and the inspections.I was wrong about the UN involvement in weapons inspections.I was wrong about the containment sanctions.I was wrong about the broader impact of the war on the Middle East.I was wrong about this making us more safe.I was wrong about the number of troops needed to stabilize Iraq.I was wrong when I stated this administration had a clear plan for the aftermath.I was wrong about securing the ammunition dumps.I was wrong about the ease of bringing democracy to the Middle East.I was wrong about dissolving the Iraqi army.I was wrong about the looting being unimportant.I was wrong that Bush/Cheney were competent.I was wrong that we would be greeted as liberators.I was wrong to make fun of the anti-war protestors.I was wrong not to trust the dirty smelly hippies.

I mean, I could go down the list and continue on, but you get the point. I was wrong about EVERY. GOD. DAMNED. THING. It is amazing I could tie my shoes in 2001-2004. If you took all the wrongness I generated, put it together and compacted it and processed it, there would be enough concentrated stupid to fuel three hundred years of Weekly Standard journals. I am not sure how I snapped out of it, but I think Abu Ghraib and the negative impact of the insurgency did sober me up a bit.

War should always be an absolute last resort, not just another option. I will never make the same mistakes again.